


what's going on (because i definitely don't get it)

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: COVID-19, M/M, Quarantine, Skype calls, im not sure if ill continue this but who knows, the classic trope of 'oh no my call wasn't actually on mute'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29781780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Peter's physics class gets a glimpse of one of Peter's quarantine roommates.
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker
Comments: 15
Kudos: 427
Collections: Fanfic Anonymous





	what's going on (because i definitely don't get it)

Betty was so, so very confused. She knew that at least Cindy was too, as she'd been blowing up her phone since the moment Peter had covered his camera.

But, Betty was a journalist- well, journalist in training- and journalists didn't freak out. They investigated and solved puzzles and they made sure they knew the truth before anyone else.

Fact one: this was supposed to be a normal Skype call. It was genuinely frustrating to use Skype, as everywhere else in the entire world was using Zoom but Midtown High decided that it needed to be special, so everyone had to use Skype. But that was off-topic. 

It was supposed to be a _normal_ Skype call of a _normal_ Physics class.

And it had been. For most of class, until Mrs. Warren had stepped out. It'd been normal until a warm, accented voice called out a soft "babe?" and _Peter Parker_ had turned to answer it.

It was only then that she thought to look at his surroundings, clicking on his section of the screen to get a bigger view as most of the class fell silent to hear what was going on.

Honestly, the biggest shock of it was that it was _Peter Parker_ , the guy that'd ditched Liz at Homecoming and never made so much as a peep in the direction of anyone remotely popular again. And Betty felt bad for thinking this, but he was kind of irrelevant as far as the rest of the school went. He was a nerd, sure, and he and Ned Leeds made no secret of the fact that they liked Legos at fifteen, but he'd never done anything to warrant any kind of attention until the whole thing with Liz. 

As far as Betty knew, and therefore as far as _Liz_ knew, he'd never been in a relationship before, and she was genuinely shocked to see evidence that that had changed.

The voice sounded amused. "Why aren't you wearing pants?" This time, the sentence was longer, allowing her to assume the person probably identified as male.

Peter's hand went over his camera, and Betty systematically began muting each and every person in the call besides Mrs. Warren and Peter himself. She was not going to miss this conversation. The chat was going wild, but she ignored it except to tell them all to stay muted until the teacher came back on threat of digging up their secrets and streaming them from Midtown's Twitter. "Harley, you're _so_ lucky I'm on mute right now." The indignation left his tone. "And why would I be wearing pants? I'm in my bed and playing games on my phone.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

"Babe. It's _physics_. You know, the class I usually sleep through?"

"You sleep through Chemistry and Pre-Cal too, don't forget," 'Harley' teased. 

"Shut up," Peter grumbled. "It's not my fault quarantine is such a great excuse for me to try to pay back my sleep debt."

Harley laughed. "I don't think that's even possible."

Peter laughed too, and she was surprised to find herself thinking that it was a rather nice laugh. "What'd you want, though?"

Harley laughed nervously. "So you remember that compound you were working on? The one you brought over to my desk because I wanted to see it?"

Peter groaned. "What did you do?"

"It wasn't my fault." There was a pause. "Actually, I can't even think up a way to pin that on anyone else. It was me. I kind of blew it up."

Peter's voice went louder than she'd ever heard it. "You did _what_? I've been working on that polymer for two days!"

"I know, I know! But you said you were super close to finishing it, and I was thinking about trying to do it for you, because I know you've been missing your aunt a ton and I thought it'd be a nice surprise-"

"I appreciate the thought but-"

"But I didn't because I figured you would probably want to do it yourself! Plus, we both know I suck at Chemistry. But uh, the sparkplug I was tinkering with kind of hit a wire next to it that was connected to a battery and that knocked into the beaker and… everything… kind of… exploded?"

"You are so lucky I saved my process before I went to bed last night or I swear to Thor I would've beat your ass, Harley."

"Well, you might want to come down to the lab anyway."

"I still have to be _on the call_ , even if I have Mrs. Warren and the rest of the class on mute. You can handle clean-up by yourself."

He'd had them all on _mute_? So there had been no reason for her to manually mute everyone?

"Yeah, I know that, but whatever happened to it when it caught on fire must've made it into something else because it's kind of burning a hole through my table."

Peter let out a string of curses she'd never in life heard together, letting go of his camera. He leapt out of frame, jostling the laptop until it landed on its side, giving her and the rest of the class a great view of the rest of the room as he shoved past a startlingly attractive boy and out the doorway. In boxers. His shirt and overshirt were still on, but he really, truly, had no pants on.

Harley- that must've been Harley- laughed, glancing back at the laptop.

"Hey FRI, can you ask Peter if I should just hang up for him?"

A feminine voice came from somewhere off-camera. "He says he doesn't care, because he is breaking up with you. He also added a long stream of expletives I feel I should not repeat."

Harley snickered, face light. "Tell him I'll be down to help in a few minutes."

"Message received." Harley reached for the laptop, picking it up and giving her an even better view of his face. Her phone started going off even faster.

He looked at the screen, rolling his eyes. "I can't believe this is what they're teaching in STEM schools. It's barely better than my school."

FRI spoke again. "Mr. Parker says that the hole has spread and that 'he accidentally made my advanced polymer into Caro's acid, which is almost impressive. You can tell him that, FRI, as long as you also tell him that it also burned through half my notes and my trust in him'."

Harley winced. "Oh, he's going to kill me. Do you have any copies of the notes?"

"I can create some, though I will have to comb through recent footage in order to find an image of the first set so I can do that."

"You're a lifesaver," he said gratefully, before looking back at the screen. His eyes widened and his face paled. "Oh my God. It wasn't on mute?"

Betty waved sheepishly.

"Oh fuck, if I thought the _acid_ was bad…"

She unmuted herself, leaving everyone else still silent. "Hi! I'm Betty Brant, head reporter for the school news! Would you mind answering a few questions about either yourself, your relationship with Peter Parker, or your current location? Just for my own curiosity. None of this would be published, don't worry."

He stared back with wide eyes. "Of course it's a reporter."

She bristled, but managed to keep her smile on as she flipped her notebook to a new page. "Your name is Harley, right? Peter said it a few minutes ago."

"Uh… yeah. That's me. How long were you listening?"

"Do you mind if I ask exactly what-"

Peter appeared behind Harley, running like he was being chased by a lion. "FRIDAY told me what was going on. Why would you _talk_ to them?" 

"I panicked!"

"I'm going to kill you. In cold blood. With the acid _you_ made. I'm going to dissolve your beautiful, beautiful hair first and then I'll move on to the rest of you."

"You do remember that they're still on there, right?"

He snatched the laptop from Harley's hands, eyes going even wider than the other boy's had. 

"Hi Peter!"

"... Hi Betty. Listen, I've… got to go. _Thanksforeverythingokaythanksbye_!"

His section of the screen disappeared, leaving the rest of them to stare at their cameras like they were on The Office.

She'd forgotten to think up fact two.

* * *

Peter looked up at Harley, who gave him a sheepish version of his best smile. "I am going to kill you."

The smile fell. "Look, I know, okay? I'll fix it though, I swear."

"Harley. My class just heard that entire conversation. They heard me say I wasn't wearing pants. They heard me _swear_. I never swear at school! The literal only saving grace was that my teacher wasn't there to hear me say that I sleep through her class. That, and the fact that Flash wasn't online today. That's it."

FRIDAY piped up. "I hate to interrupt, but Mr. Parker was not able to finish cleaning up the acid. I would recommend heading back down and doing that before anything else, as Boss will be on his way back in less than an hour."

"Shit!"


End file.
